Farmers
Insurance Agent &
Farmers
Insurance Employee Information

Below are just some of the cases I have found regarding Agents, Claim
Representatives and Adjusters. I will add more as time
permits. If you are an employee or agent of Farmers Insurance feel free to post your negative experience in our forum.

Farmers Insurance Agent Contract Breeched & Terminated! "This is a very, VERY long post I know, and as a disclaimer, the views expressed below are my own personal opinions based upon my own experience with this dinosaur of a company – but it is well worth the read. I normally do not post in blogs or forums, but as a former Farmers agent who knows the 'inside' of this company, I have such a severe distrust and deep lack of respect for this unethical company that I am compelled to put something in writing to hopefully help others avoid my mistake with Farmers. Based upon my experience, this must be the single worst insurance company in America – period – especially regarding its treatment of its agency force. While all insurance companies have customers with bad experiences, Farmers Insurance far and above exceeds the norm. Just look around on the internet at sites such as www.ripoffreport.com and others and you'll see that Farmers Insurance leads ALL other companies in all states in terms of complaints, ethical violations, claim fraud, and agent abuse. This is the worst of the worst." See full post of this Farmers Insurance Agent Experience!!

Reasons NOT to become a Farmers Insurance Agent 1 : "My training involved them giving me a binder and a password to their website. A series of training meetings were scheduled, in which I showed up to two or three to find out that the meetings were cancelled (I'm sorry but you didn't get that email was what I was told). You have a year to progress from a reserve agent to a career agent. However, I was made to believe that if I did not meet my quotas after 3 months I would be looking for a new job. My belief is that Farmers tries to bring in as many new agents as they can so they can take 30-40 policies from these people (their friends and family). Then Farmers essentially makes life as difficult as possible for these new agents, hoping they will leave. The new agent's policies are then transferred to agents who have been around for a long time. This is how Farmers gets new business." Read More!:Should I become a Farmers Insurance Ageny?

Reasons NOT to become a Farmers Insurance Agent 2 :"I recently became a Farmers Career Agent and am now leaving for a different company. The DM paints a beautiful picture of subsidy payments but fails to actually say what the reality of these payments are and how attainable they are. Now I am stuck paying back half as i was pushed out the door. First they rushed me into "Career status" and now after barely missing the benchmarks in the first quarter they are forcing a resignation. I resigned before that happened but it was in the works. Ridiculous."
"Being a Farmers agent is the worst decesion I have ever made and encourage anyone considering joining Farmers just don't do it. Farmers is like Amway, the recruit agents with stories of being on the golf course in three years while your staff does all the work. They make selling sound easy. The district office offers no support, no leads and Farmers rarely advertises. The recruits write as much as they can and if they don't make the program, Farmers has 30 or 40 new policies..... They only want new business and everything they offer in discounts is geared around that. With a low retention rate, agents drop like flies. The policies are then shifted to other more seasoned agents.Read More!:Becoming a Farmers Insurance Agent

MUST READ!: MANY Agent Stories at : "The more I learned about Farmers and the more emails I got and meetings I went to, I grew more and more tired of hearing about life insurance. I literally did not want to sell it anymore. After checking into rates with other companies and finding out the product I was selling, cost on average 2x more than any other company, I no longer wanted to even think about life insurance. I looked at every agent around me and saw one thing we all had in common, each of us had about 3 policies on ourselves, and 1 on each of our closest family members. My son wasnt even a month old before I had 2 on him! It really seemed like this whole program wasnt about us being successful as an agent. it was about an agent coming onboard, writing everybody close to them for life insurance and being forced out of the program because they couldnt make the life requirements anymore. "

Bilby v. Farmers Insurance Farmers Insurance refused to allow family rights provision as allowed in the agent/companycontract. Following agent Mickey Bilby's termination under the company's DARG pro-gram, Farmers refused to allow the son's business to be incorporated into his father’sagency. Embrey stated, "Our charges in this lawsuitwere strong including apparent fraud by localFarmers Management. We will continue tohold these charges valid and pending overmanagement to ensure future cooperationwith these agents having a combined agencyexperience of over 60 years." The Voice (Page 30), Farmers Agent Lawsuit , Farmers Breach of Contract Court Docket

Agent Terminiated after 12 Years of Employment "A former insurance salesman seeking actual, exemplary, punitive and consequential damages claims Farmers Insurance Exchange breached its contract with him by firing him after 12 years of employment."..."Hudson alleges Farmer's breached its contract with him by terminating their "written agent appointment agreement…without cause,"..."documents filed with the suit suggest Hudson was blindsided with his termination and that his policies were already authorized to be reassigned to two other agents before he was let go." (Case No. A040181-c) setexasrecord.com

A Case for Being an Independent Agent No longer under the umbrella of one of the "big three" insurers, Jackson discovered dozens of companies eager to write homeowners insurance and willing to offer competitive rates. "I didn't realize there were so many companies out there," he said. "There's plenty of companies here that want the business." 9/22/07 chron.com

Farmers Agent = Secure or Dead End?

Disillusioned with Farmers or fearing termination, we can help! After 28 years you can imagine my surprise when Farmers gave my Client files to a younger agent? With no place to go I was devastated. Don’t let this happen to you, I can help! Based on production you’ll earn new and renewal commissions the same paid by Farmers. Considering retirement? Rewrite your business and earn more money. Call or email us now.
Insurance & Mortgage Services
Independent Insurance Agency
Residential & Commercial Mortgage Loans
Phone: 206-282-1712 Email: Vance@VanceWebster.net

Farmers Insurance Employee Feedback! See what employess are saying about Farmers Insurance Group at: jobvent.com

Farmers Insurance Employees If you are a current or former Farmers Insurance employee and have taken an FMLA absence from work or know someone who has you should read about the potential Farmers Insurance Class Action Lawsuit for unlawful garnishment of sick pay. Update: The United States Department of Labor Wage Hour Division has completed the investigation of the above described violations of the family medical leave act and found a sustained violation….Any current or former claims employees, uw, siu, adjusters, etc., or part of the umbrella companies who have been pinched on any f.m.l.a. issue, and told you did not qualify for F.M.L.A. protections, sick pay issue, discharged while under F.M.L.A., or had wages unlawfully garnished should post comments now to be heard. Potential Farmers Insurance Class Action Lawsuit

Interested in becoming a Farmers Insurance Agent? Rick, an ex-agent states, "The real picture started to be come clear. Farmers real marketing plan is on the order of a Multi-Level Marketing Scheme. They find and recruit as many people as possible to sell to their immediate friends and family then wash out of the program so they can transfer those policies to the agents who can actually put up with the torture."..."The DM started threatening to have my contract cancelled with every meeting and conversation. He even told me that I was putting his "childerens future in jepardy", due to my lack of life sales."..."I cant think of any situation where it would be better to be a captive agent with Farmers than to just be completely independent. Heck, I would have been better off if I just took a job at Mc Donalds Drive through. At least they would have paid me and I could have quit without owing anything. Very expensive lesson learned." Read (link here, agent story1)

Wow! Farmers Insurance Agent Story: Make $250k A Year!!?? "In reality, the district manager charged a “desk fee” of $500 a month alone. Once I added in marketing expenses of $1500/mo, staff expense of $1,500/mo, and other small expenses, I was spending close to $4,000 a month for the honor of working for Farmers Insurance."..."You see, the more you sell, the more “subsidy” you are given, and the deeper in debt you become. In a way you are digging yourself into a hole with every policy you sell" (new link here dave)

Is Farmers Insurance in the process of replacing all of his experienced PIP Managers? A Farmers Insurance employee states, "Jim Sorrells, the current Director of Shared Services (Med/PIP, Work Comp, Subrogation) for Farmers is in the process of replacing all of his experienced PIP Managers in favor of bringing in unexperienced Managers from outside of Farmers."... " In Oregon, he hired a woman that has no insurance industry, PIP or Farmers experience. He has put her in charge of running one of the largest PIP operations in the country." Former Farmers Insurance Supervisor

Considering a job with Farmers or already have one?
Consider getting out now! See how loyal
Farmers Insurance was to agents Mark Corbin, Junior Day and Carol Gunn. Insurer Drops Agents by Ben Boulden Jan 11, 2005.

Farmers Insurance is suing its own Agent "My year is now up, and today I get legal paperwork from Farmers saying during my year, I violated the non comptete agreement ( I was very careful not to), and they are suing me as I have damaged Farmers Insurance Exchange to the tune of one quarter of a million dollars!!" Farmers Insurance Suing Agent

Father and son resign as Agents with Farmers Insurance to start their own insurance company "We came to the realization that in a small community it's hard to work with only one company," Chris said. "When you only have one company, you have to force people to fit a particular plan. It's like making a round peg fit in a square hole."..."Now, their company will have licensures with more than 30 companies"..."It's much more customer friendly," he said. Full Story Their web site is at http://HannekenInsurance.com

Farmers Insurance Reserve Agent Program “What you are told is that you should identify 100 potential clients from people you know. In my view, this might be better stated as "identify 100 people who - if you can quote their insurance needs at or near what they pay today - would switch from their current insurer to Farmers"....."To state the obvious -- some of your 100 potential clients may well think that what they believe is taking advantage of your relationship."..."In my view, the entire Reserve Agent program is a "trial by fire."Farmers provides very, very little in the way of support." See Post.

Former Farmers Insurance Agent Screwed: "A repair that SHOULD HAVE taken 30 days, took 6 months"..."It became painfully clear, that Farmers worked on a different set of morals. Even though I was trying to be fair to them, they had absolutely NO PROBLEM with trying to screw over one of their own Agents!" See e-Mail

Read how a Farmers Insurance District Manager Darrell A. Bennett was treated: "Plaintiff (Bennett) alleged that defendants (Farmers Insurance) had
encouraged him to give up his insurance agency to become a
district manager and that, after he had built a successful
business, defendants (Farmers Insurance) had established unreasonable performance
goals and used other deceitful strategies to force him out of
business and to reap the profits of the business that he had
created. "..."Plaintiff (Bennett) introduced evidence at trial in support of
those allegations. Colvard, the regional agency manager who
worked under Winter and who attended the meetings to evaluate
plaintiff, testified that plaintiff's 1985 performance plan was
part of defendants' strategy to force plaintiff (Bennett) to resign.
Colvard explained that his own success was evaluated based on the
number of district managers that he could replace. According to
Colvard, defendants (Farmers Insurance) benefitted from replacing district managers
because the commission paid to new agents typically was lower
than that paid to seasoned ones, and defendants would profit from
the difference. Colvard further testified that he had been told
that Farmers had to have good cause to terminate a district
manager. Accordingly, to support plaintiff's termination,
Colvard had had to document a "severe performance deficiency."
Colvard also admitted that he had set out to obtain plaintiff's
resignation or to document his performance deficiency by setting
unreachable performance quotas."..."As noted above, the jury returned a verdict in
plaintiff's favor on each of plaintiff's claims." See Former Farmers Insurance District Manager

Allen Schirado v Farmers Insurance Former Farmers Insurance agent is sued after terminating his contract with Farmers Insurance and sending a letter to his clients. Farmers Insurance is alleging breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference with contract, conversion, unjust enrichment, and breach of fiduciary duty. Schirado wins summary judgement and then on appeal, the case is reversed and remanded. Schirado v Farmers Insurance 6/29/06 Editor: I don't see why anyone would want to be a Farmers Insurance Agent and be locked into a "Agent Appointment Agreement", it makes more sense to be an independent agent. Schirado, good luck in your case as it continues.

Farmers Insurance Office Claims Representative "I sit in my little cubicle and listen to all of the other OCR's hollering and yelling at people while I have never talked to a customer in such a way. "..."Farmers OCR's have a high turnover rate because of the pressure put on us - not by the customers but by the company."..."I would love to do this for another company, but FARMERS is horrible."

California Farmers Insurance Agent Help Needed! "This class action in brief, is on behalf of California insureds that have been charged an allegedly improper “surcharge.” Farmers Insurance was surcharging a fee for previously uninsured motorists that could not verify previous auto insurance. As a result, Farmers Insurance would place a surcharge on the insured’s premium, claiming that their accident record could not be verified. The surcharge is also referred to as “non verifiable automobile driving surcharge.” This is illegal in the State of California; therefore, we need an agent that could help provide us with a list of insureds that have experienced the situation above, preferably residents in the Los Angeles location willing to meet and discuss. If you can provide this sort of information, please let me know and please provide an amount for charges this will entail". Contact Razia Noorzay via email at rrn@rpnlaw.com or by phone at: (818) 992-9999 ext. 220. See Ryan v. Farmers Insurance Lawsuit. (1.6 MB PDF)

Current and Former Employees of Farmers Insurance, please fill out this survey and return. Survey 3/17/2006

Claims Reps! Is Farmers Insurance pressuring you to work off-the-clock uncompensated overtime? Is Farmers illegally persecuting adjusters that were involved in the class action lawsuit?
Read the email I received today. (posted March 1, 2006)

Farmers Insurance Exchange Must Pay Overtime in Minnesota: For four
years, the Defendant in this case, Farmers Insurance Exchange (`Farmers
Insurance’), had fought its employees claims for denied overtime pay, despite
Minnesota labor laws that entitle workers with their job responsibilities to
overtime pay. After a three-week jury trial that began on October 7, 2004, the
jury found that Farmers Insurance had violated the Minnesota Fair Labor
Standards Act, when Farmers illegally classified certain workers as exempt from
overtime provisions. The benefit of this misclassification to Farmers Insurance
was they could refuse to pay overtime to these hourly workers, saving the
insurer millions of dollars. See Press
Release (pdf). See the
Order (pdf). April 8, 2005 (who would ever want to be
employed by a company like this?)

Employee Sues Farmers Insurance for Racial Remarks: Debra Lazarus
alleges a Farmers Insurance Agent made racist remarks to her. She sues and
settles out of court.
See Post1
See Post2

United Farmers Agents Association fights Farmers Insurance. "UFAA continues to fight the fight to bring about much-needed clarification of our AAA and the many questionable
issues within the Agents Appointment Agreement. Ambiguous language needs to be rewritten in a manner in
which an Agent doesn’t spend years of his/her life building a business that can be taken from them with little or
no regard as to what principles and ethics are involved in the process."
Read about the history of the Declaratory Relief Action (DRA), agents have had
to struggle and fight. The
Voice, Summer 2005 (As time permits, I will post more
information from the Voice
magazines that alleges all the crap Farmers puts their Agents through)
United Farmers Agents Association web site.
See the UFAA Presidents
letter, which states,"Farmers states that they will get the insured
back where they belong. Just what does that mean? We as agents know that some
foreign army isn't going to chopper in and rebuild a home. We know that a
vehicle isn't going to be repaired without using after market parts. We know
that if wind or hail damages a roof, the insured is only going to get
replacement of the damaged shingles. Checkerboard roofs with a mixture of 10
year old and brand new shingles aren't appealing to the insured who has
suffered the loss or the neighbors who ask about which insurance company made
your home look so bad."

Class Action: A group of Farmers personal lines claims representatives recently filed a new class action lawsuit in Federal court in Los Angeles against Farmers seeking unpaid overtime damages under the FLSA and state overtime
laws. Entitled Balliet v. Farmers Insurance, Case No. CV 04-09148 TJH (C.D. Cal.), the suit is on behalf of personal lines claims representatives who are or were employed by Farmers (1) in states other than California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, or Washington, and (2) who did not opt into the current Farmers’ case in Oregon federal court; or (3) who worked for Farmers after April 2003.
Farmers claims representatives who believe they may be eligible to participate in this lawsuit and want more information, may contact class counsel at 1-866-854-8550 or by email at
info@farmersovertime.com.
See: Farmers Overtime.
See the Bell v. Farmers Class Website.

Class Action Judgment for Farmer’s Adjusters "The underlying suit, filed in 1996 by Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff, accused Farmers Insurance Exchange of cheating 2,402 California-based claims adjusters out of overtime pay. Farmers had argued that the employees were administrators exempt from overtime regulations."...."But Farmers and its industry supporters kept fighting their workers’ claims with all their resources," he said. "We are delighted that the workers will finally be fairly compensated for their long hours of work on Farmers’ behalf."
Huge Settlement Ends Record-Setting Overtime Class
Action ,Mike McKee,The Recorder, Sept. 7, 2004

Farmers Claims Rep: "I just came across your website and I’d like to share my Farmers Horror Story. I was a property claims rep. for Farmers from 9/2001 thru 8/2002 in Denver Co. Long story short. I was one of 11 class representatives that just sued Farmers & won for unpaid overtime wages. Our trial was heard in Portland Oregon and is now in the punitive damages stages. It feels so damn good to hit em where it hurts. I learned in a very short time with Farmers that LEO’s (lost economic opportunities, or overpaid claims) were not tolerated and therefore we were basically instructed to underpay the claim and offer restitution at a later date if the insured persisted. Keep up the good work!"
-via email 9/2004 M.
Snyder (remove "up" before sending)

Farmers Claims Rep: "I am a former Claims Representative for Farmers Insurance and can tell you Farmers has given me the impression they no longer care about customer service. My last position at Farmers was a Quality Assurance Consultant. My job was to review insurance department complaints, complaints to the CEO’s office, and verbal complaints and determine if they were justified complaints. After finding several justified complaints in California, we were told that no matter how bad a claim was handled, we could not justify the complaint unless a violation of the Fair Claims Practice was found to exist. This sent a message to the adjusters and the service immediately dropped. I quit soon after.
If you have a problem and would like to e-mail the CEO of Farmers, Martin Feinstein, you can reach him at
Martin.Feinstein@farmersinsurance.com."
-via email 11/2003 Jeff
(remove "up" before sending)

Farmers Catastrophe Team: Just reviewed your website. Might I say that everything is
exactly correct. I just quit my job with Farmers. I was a member of their "Catastrophe Team". This is basically a group of about 150 people that they hire and treat like slaves in order to save them money by teaching them how not to pay claims. Everyday involved arguing with contractors and homeowners about how much damage a storm did to their home and what was considered storm damage and what was not. They tell us that we are supposed to be experts on constructing houses when over half of the people I worked with had never worked in construction or even worked outdoors. I was right out of college and had done some construction work for a few summers, but they hire many young females and tell them that they are experts on construction and send them out to houses and have them make fools out of
themselves and the company by arguing with contractors. Also, the customer service sucks because another way they try to save money is by working people anywhere from 14-18 hrs a day 7 days a week. There were numerous people I worked with, including
myself that had to take medication to deal with the stress. At the same time I have stayed at the same hotels as State Farm adjusters who stated that they love there job and have plenty of time on there hands to enjoy time to themselves. They also had us drive branded cars and there were times that I was afraid for my life because I had the Farmers decal on my car in a bad part of a city. Farmers lies to their employees the same way that they screw the customers. Everyday of my job, I felt like I was screwing the customer and that this is what I was hired to do. Finally I got out of the job and now I am actually having a difficult time getting them to send my the rest of the wages they owe me. I would not recommend Farmes to anyone and if you have them I would drop them ASAP. They lost 15% of there business in 2004 and lets make it another 15% this year. I hope the whole company goes under and I especially hope the manager I had (Kenneth K. Brown) gets fired just like he fired my friend. He fired a friend of mine because, (this is what he said) "I don’t need a reason to fire you, I can fire you just because I do not like you". Anyway, If you have any questions or if there is anything I can do to help make Farmers Insurance go under, please email me back.
Thank you.
-via email 6/2004 JCL (remove the
"up" before sending)

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